First thing that comes to mind is the old "burning the image as a
file" problem...

In a gui program, choose the "burn an image" option rather
than the "make a cd" option.

Okay, this was it. The CD will now boot.

But I've got a super problem that no one can help me with now. I've got
a motherboard problem; Mandrake calls it a syncing problem. My computer
will run Windows98 but will not run Linux. Before I got it "fixed" I
couldn't even run Windows. So now I need a new computer.